Shock
by The Assassin's Pen
Summary: Geralt's journey back into his memory was not easy. Roche didn't believe in ressurection or the wild hunt or any of the tripe in Rivia. That is, until the once dead white wolf has an episode in his dungeon. Geralt whump.


The idea of someone viscerally reaction to suddenly remembering or re-living their own death had me so interested I just ran with it. A bit of an alternate-in-cannon scene for Witcher 2 when Roche is telling Geralt about the massacre in Rivia.

* * *

Roche had seen a lot, but a resurrected Witcher was not one he was willing to believe in right away. Reports could be faked. A lot of death had happened that day, and people by and large didn't come back from the dead. Not even mutants.

No, either Geralt hadn't died or this wasn't Geralt. Either way it didn't matter, the Witcher was being damn stubborn but Roche needed his help. The only way they were going to find the king's killer was through Geralt's leads. So, for the moment he was an ally.

Roche always treated his allies with respect, so he fed Geralt, gave him drink—and gave him honesty.

The Witcher had taken a look at the food and not twitched more than a finger, but he'd drunk down the pale ale like he'd been rescued from a desert. Roche's suspicions were confirmed and he resolved to give the guards a thorough talking to—were their prisoner not a Witcher he very well could have died of dehydration after suffering a whipping and being offered no liquid to replace the blood he was certain now stained their best cells. A dead prisoner before the planned hanging date was the opposite of helpful.

"And Foltest's death?"

"Actually, Geralt's death," Roche said, laying the file on the table where the Witcher could reach it. He didn't look down. His gold eyes remained fixed on him, a mix of astonishment and curiosity lighting his expression.

Roche began reciting what he recalled was in the file, knowing it by heart. He'd been the one who'd had to go over the details until the case was closed and it was filed with the dust. Dust disturbed when the supposedly deceased and buried Witcher showed up and cured the king's daughter of her Striga curse for the second time in her short life.

Instead of pondering the details, he watched Geralt's reaction, much more curious to find out if the man was an impostor pretending to be Geralt or if the death was faked. The mutant sat there listening intently, his eyes unfocused as though watching something else. His posture was stiff, such a change from his more relaxed, almost sarcastic posture while he was recounting the fight that led to Foltest's demise.

"During the riot, 76 non-humans perish, including the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia," he continued, and Geralt's eyes cast around, as though watching a brawling match. His breathing hitched and his brow knit, and Roche saw a strange, desperate light in those unnatural eyes—the light of someone clinging to every word because it was awakening something lost, uncovering something he knew was still there.

"Stabbed in the chest with a pitchfork by a man of whom we know only that his name was Rob and that he owed three crowns at the local tavern." Roche paused then, because the Witcher had flinched, hard, when he mentioned the fatal wound. His eyes were still unfocused but they had ceased to cast around, instead they were staring at the surface of the table, the same way Roche had seen countless soldiers stare into their own blood soaked hands as they staggered with a sword clean through the gut, not yet able to feel the pain.

"Yennefer of Vengerberg dies trying to heal the Witcher," he recited slowly. Geralt's eyelids fluttered and the deathly vacancy in his eyes intensified until they rolled back in his head. Roche watched in astonishment as Geralt shuddered violently and fell from the bench. Fearing his only lead to Foltest's death was suddenly expiring himself Roche almost tripped over the table getting around it and knelt at Geralt's side, hefting his upper body into his lap and casting around for what could possibly be wrong. He'd been fine while they talked, and unless there was a poison that could actually effect a Witcher—but was there such a thing? Who would be poisoning his suspect? And how do you poison a man who drinks wolfsbane mixed with ghoul blood for its edge?

Scabbing and heat from angry whip wounds still seeping blood and plasma in Geralt's back soaked into Roche's trousers and for a moment Roche remembered the rumor that Witchers couldn't be tortured because they died almost instantly. Something about their extremely sensitive nervous systems not being able to handle it and causing a vein in the brain to burst. He snorted out loud, stabilizing Geralt's head with a hand at the base of his neck as he turned him over and looked at the raw injuries. Painful and deep, but not infected. The sheer mass of scarring all over Geralt's back, arms, torso and even his throat proved that theory the load of shit it was. Witchers were anything but delicate.

So what in all of Temaria was happening to this one?

"Witcher, come on, snap out of it," Roche commanded, shifting so Geralt was laying on the cold stone, hoping it would rouse him. He tapped the Witcher's cheek but Geralt didn't respond. He was breathing rapidly, sucking pained, shallow breaths that didn't seem to be doing him any good at all. His skin was deathly pale, something Roche thought wasn't any more possible, and he had grown clammy.

 _Shock_ , Roche thought with disbelief, confirming his suspicions with a few fingers against the Witcher's soft throat. The pulse was rapid and uneven, something Roche hadn't registered at first. For a human his pulse was fast but not dangerously so. For a Witcher it was absolutely racing. It was easy to forget that a Witcher's heart only beat once for every four of a normal man's, and Geralt's was stumbling along in his breast as though it was running for its life. The Witcher had actually gone into shock.

But from what? Roche got up and sniffed at the empty tankard but there was no trace of poison. Geralt's only wounds were, for him, superficial and would heal with care and a few days of tending. But he was acting like a man inflicted with severe trauma, a man who only had a few minutes left to live. Roche felt a panic surge—he needed Geralt to find that killer, maybe even needed Geralt's lover Triss.

"Geralt, snap out of it," Roche commanded in a growl, shaking the Witcher's shoulder even though he knew that wouldn't help. He pressed open one of the white eyelids and snatched his hand back in surprise. The pupil was narrowed so tightly that barely a sliver of black remained. It gave him such an unnerving, inhuman appearance that Roche felt instinctively repulsed. But he didn't back away.

"Come on Witcher, what's happening to you?" he said, casting around for other clues. Geralt was clutching at his lower chest, his fingernails digging into his skin. Roche gripped his hand and pulled it away, the cold skin reminding him that if he didn't figure this out Geralt really was going to expire right there on the floor. What he saw underneath was no hidden wound or evidence of foul play, as Roche had suspected. Instead, there was a single, puckered scar no larger than the tip of Roche's finger. Bewildered, he touched it and Geralt cried out in a pained gasp, his back arching and his head dashing violently to the side. The white hair stuck to his neck and cold sweat ran across his collarbone to wet the wolf medallion laying on his breastbone.

That's when it struck Roche and his eyes traced diagonally across the Witcher's body in utter disbelief. _One...two...three puncture scars. One tine piercing the heart and lung, one tearing the diaphragm and liver, the last...punctured intestine. Not that it mattered compared with the other wounds_.

The report was true. This was really Geralt of Rivia. He really had died. The evidence of it marred his chest and stomach, revealing the healing that should never have taken place. Instead of rotting in some crypt the Witcher, by some magical force no doubt, had been closed up and restored.

He shouldn't be alive, and Roche had just caused him to remember, and apparently re-live his own death. What kind of trauma did that do to a man? Death was supposed to be the end—remembering it was the most unnatural thing possible. Geralt was a living wraith and facing the reality of what had happened was killing him all over again. Roche panicked—how did you fix someone who wasn't physically injured?

"Geralt!" he said, gripping his shoulder again and shaking. "Come on Witcher none of this is real, you're in the prisons where I tossed you after Foltest, remember? You aren't injured, try to breathe."

His commands were doing nothing and Geralt's gasping was getting more pathetic. He was losing strength, and so was his pulse. Roche chewed his lip and then decided to try something crazy. If Geralt thought he was dying Roche would play along. He yanked the cloth off of his head and pressed it against the ghost of the wound, acting exactly how he would for an injured soldier in the field. "Hang in there Geralt, the wound isn't that bad. You'll be fine. You hear me?" He slapped Geralt's cheek and wound his fingers in the sweat-soaked hair, tugging to elicit a pain response that he hoped would be stronger than the phantom one Geralt was suffering. "Hey, Witcher, snap out of it. Triss will be here any moment, she'll heal you. You'll be fine. I've managed to stop the bleeding, you were barely nicked."

For a short moment there was no real response. Geralt's breathing was still shallow, his head laying back and the weak pulse flickering far too fast against the firelight illuminating his pale throat. Gradually though, the tense muscles began to relax and his breathing hitched, stopping all together. Roche involuntarily held his own breath too, his lungs burning mightily by the time Geralt scraped in a long, deep lungful. It sounded painful but it was the beginning of the end of the attack. Slowly what little color he possessed came back to his skin and warmth returned. Two fingers under his jaw showed that his pulse had slowed considerably.

Roche slumped in relief and let out a long breath, running his hand through his hair and causing it to stick up. Geralt was unconscious, but seemed to be responding to the play-along treatment. That must have been some flashback. Roche did not envy Geralt the headache and muscle strain he was sure to have when he woke. Sitting back on his haunches and pulling the cloth from Geralt's chest Roche took a moment to compose himself, and that's when the reality started to sink in. He stared at Geralt, trying to reconcile his personal understanding of the world with what the evidence wouldn't let him ignore.

The Witcher had been resurrected. Brought back from wherever spirits go when they didn't transform into the things Witchers hunted. Slowly, Roche replaced his turbin and inched a little closer, inspecting Geralt with new eyes. His mouth dry and pulse pounding Roche reached out and touched the puncture directly over the most powerful point of the Witcher's heart. It was definitely real. The divot in the flesh, the hard threads of muscle bonded with scar tissue, and most grounding of all the solid thud of the heart as it throbbed back into its natural rhythm. Four times as slow and three times as strong as a normal man's.

"By the gods," he breathed, withdrawing and sitting unsteadily back on his haunches. "What happened to you, Witcher?" he whispered, watching the deep, healthy movement of his chest as the shock subsided completely. If he was perfectly honest Roche felt he was probably in some kind of shock himself now.

Geralt groaned and his eyes finally opened. Roche half expected to see the pupils still frighteningly constricted but it was near the opposite. Away from the torch Geralt's eyes looked almost human, except for that perpetually alien gold color. He blinked and sat up slowly, wincing and dropping his forehead into his hand.

"What happened?" he groaned.

"I was about to ask you the same," Roche managed, getting up and offering the Witcher a hand. The hand that gripped his forearm was warm and strong as Geralt pulled himself up, and Roche half wondered if he'd imagined what he'd just witnessed. The puncture scars made even easier to see in the torch light now that Geralt was upright erased any doubt. Roche swallowed, flitting his eyes back up to the Witcher's face. " _Do_ you know what happened?" he pressed.

Geralt stood there for a moment, brow furrowed, looking at the floor. "I saw..." he drew a half breath, and for a moment Roche feared he'd regress back to the shock state. "I saw my own death..." he breathed, hand on the table to steady himself. "I felt the life...draining out of me.." his brows drew even closer together and he swallowed, mouth partially open as he breathed strangely, clearly working to process.

"All right, why don't you sit down. Eat something," Roche said, pouring more ale and pressing it into Geralt's hands as he stiffly obeyed the suggestion. "Take a moment to recover—if I'd known that would have such an effect-" he dropped off, watching Geralt steady his hand on the tankard. "I'm sorry. I admit I thought you were lying about being Geralt of Rivia—either that or the report was wrong about your unfortunate demise."

Geralt took a long draw of the ale, the hand still resting on the table trembling intermittently. He stared into the dregs when he was finished. "And now?" he said quietly.

"I believe you," he answered quietly. "And the report."

"Yeah," Geralt said, and his voice sounded dry. "So do I."

"I am sorry to have triggered something so difficult, it was not my intention."

Geralt was silent. Roche waited a few moments and closed the file, discreetly slipping it off to the side and putting it away. When he turned back Geralt was still staring into his tankard.

Roche cleared his throat, clapping his hands suddenly, which seemed to snap Geralt back to the present. "Ves!" he called. "Interrogation's done, restrain the prisoner." He watched as she obeyed, Geralt rousing himself back to a semblance of what he looked like before. "I'll take the key," he told the soldier, and she left it with him, closing the door again.

"Eat," Roche chided, tossing the key on the table. "You'll need your strength."


End file.
